Organizing the Unorganized

Organizing the Unorganized
Author: Farah Haidar Kobaissy
Publisher:
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2015
Genre: Human rights
ISBN:

Abstract: In January 2015, the union for domestic workers, predominantly migrants, was launched. Working within secluded houses, domestic workers may be relatively invisible, but numbering nearly 200 thousands, they represent one of the largest sectors of Lebanon's working class. Unionizing domestic workers opens up the discussion on the possibility of organizing those who are perceived as unorganizable. Hence, this research looks into the ways in which domestic workers in Lebanon are collectively struggling to transform the economic and social conditions of paid domestic work through labor union organizing. Chapter 1 discusses the processes through which domestic workers have been produced as an 'exceptional' labor category through media, activists' and academic discourses. Chapter 2 situates the labor union organizing for domestic workers within the larger scene of the labor union movement in Lebanon suggesting that under the current neoliberal order, labor unions cannot continue to ignore these 'excessive' laboring bodies that are increasingly informal, migrants and women. Chapter 3 examines the process of unionizing the domestic workers highlighting the potentialities, as well as the obstacles confronting this process. It also looks into the multiple power relations that shape their union through axes of class, gender, race and nationality, suggesting that the 'domestic worker' is not a singular category rather it is inflicted with gendered, racial and national divisions. The nature and the location of the work, the gender of the workers, as well as their race and national origins, are all contingent on the ways in which the workers are produced within the labor union context. Chapter 4 analyzes the contribution of women's rights organizations in rendering visible cases of abuse against migrant domestic workers. It argues that the 'death' of class politics made women's rights organizations address migrant domestic workers issues as a separate labor category, further contributing to their production as an 'exception' under neoliberalism. Finally, chapter 5 opens up the discussion on the prospects of labor organizing in a national framework and under the contemporary laboring regime which is increasingly feminized, internationalized and informalized.

Organizing the Unorganized: Migrant Domestic Workers in Lebanon

Organizing the Unorganized: Migrant Domestic Workers in Lebanon
Author: Farah Kobaissy
Publisher: American University in Cairo Press
Total Pages: 139
Release: 2017-03-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1617978531

This study examines the process of unionizing domestic workers in Lebanon, highlighting the potentialities as well as the obstacles confronting it, and looks at the multiple power relations involved through axes of class, gender, race, and nationality. The author situates this struggle within the larger scene of the labor union 'movement' in the country, and discusses the contribution of women's rights organizations in rendering visible cases of abuse against migrant domestic workers. She argues that the 'death' of class politics has made women's rights organizations address migrant domestic worker issues as a separate labor category, further contributing to their production as an 'exception' under neoliberalism.

Social networks, collective organizing, and freedom of association: A qualitative participatory action research study with women migrant domestic workers in Lebanon

Social networks, collective organizing, and freedom of association: A qualitative participatory action research study with women migrant domestic workers in Lebanon
Author: Abdulrahim, Sawsan
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
Total Pages: 36
Release: 2023-06-02
Genre: Political Science
ISBN:

Worldwide, women migrant domestic workers (WMDWs) occupy a weak position in the global economy due to intersections of gender, race, and global economic inequalities. Lebanon hosts more than 250,000 WMDWs who are recruited and employed through the infamous Kafala system that binds a worker to one employer. With Lebanon’s economic crisis, a large number of WMDWs are currently working as freelancers whereby giving and receiving support from other workers plays a crucial role in their adaptation and economic survival. This study is a component of an international evaluation of the Work in Freedom Project carried out by the International Labour Organization. It focuses on Lebanon and aims to assess the impact of the project on the ability of WMDWs in Lebanon to maintain viable social networks and organize collectively. Its main objective is to investigate the different ways in which WMDWs have maintained social networks and engaged in collective organizing efforts (at the individual, meso- and macro-levels), to improve their lives and to ensure non-exploitative work conditions.

Ethiopian Migrant Domestic Workers

Ethiopian Migrant Domestic Workers
Author: Bina Fernandez
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 161
Release: 2019-08-06
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 303024055X

This book tells the stories of the Ethiopian women who migrate to work as domestic workers in the Middle East. Drawing on qualitative research in Ethiopia, Lebanon and Kuwait, the author reveals how women’s aspirations to migrate are constituted within unequal gendered structures of opportunity in Ethiopia and asks us to consider how gender, race, class and nationality intersect in the construction of migrant subjectivities and agency. By analysing the impact of migration on social reproduction both in Ethiopia and the destination countries, the book offers fresh empirical and theoretical insights into the largest stream of women’s autonomous international migration from Africa.

Beyond Kafala: Employer roles in growing vulnerabilities of women migrant domestic workers

Beyond Kafala: Employer roles in growing vulnerabilities of women migrant domestic workers
Author: Abdulrahim, Sawsan
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
Total Pages: 4
Release: 2023-04-18
Genre: Political Science
ISBN:

Women migrant domestic workers (WMDWs) constitute 7.7 percent of migrant workers worldwide, of whom more than a quarter live and work in the Arab region. In Lebanon, as in other Arab countries, WMDWs are recruited through the sponsorship system, Kafala. Under this system, a potential migrant worker can only obtain legal residency and a work permit in the country of destination if she is sponsored by a specific employer. Once in the destination country, the worker cannot transfer to a new employer unless granted permission by the original sponsor. The system heightens the social, economic, and legal vulnerability of WMDWs and has been described as unfree or bound labor and a system of racialized servitude. Yet, Kafala is not a written policy but rather a collection of administrative procedures, customary practices, and socially acceptable norms that are maintained by various players throughout the migration process. The question then arises as to whether advocacy efforts that focus on abolishing Kafala as a legal term would mitigate employers’ exploitative practices that violate the workers’ rights and freedoms, particularly in a country like Lebanon. This policy brief is based on a study carried out under the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) Work in Freedom project designed to mitigate the exploitation and forced labor of women migrating from South to West Asia to work in the domestic and garment sectors. This brief explores knowledge, awareness and attitudes to Kafala by employers in Lebanon.

Migrant Domestic Workers and Family Life

Migrant Domestic Workers and Family Life
Author: Maria Kontos
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 346
Release: 2016-02-23
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1137323558

This timely and innovative book delivers a comprehensive analysis of the non-recognition of the right to a family life of migrant live-in domestic and care workers in Argentina, Canada, Germany, Italy, Lebanon, Norway, the Philippines, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, the United Arab Emirates, the United States of America, and Ukraine.